The Colorado State Patrol has been ordered to pay $768,268 to a former patrol captain who was denied re-employment after the agency learned he was gay.

The amount includes back pay with interest, as well as lost forward pay.

State Senior Administrative Law Judge Mary McClatchey said in a 25-page opinion that former State Patrol Capt. Brett Williams — who she said was highly dedicated to the patrol, where he enjoyed a “stellar career” — suffered and will continue to suffer from the patrol’s discriminatory actions against him.

Williams, now 45, left the agency in early 2010 to pursue a career as a helicopter pilot, but a few months later he asked to return to the patrol.

At the time he left the patrol, he was earning $96,000 annually plus benefits.

During the polygraph test required as part of the reinstatement, a State Patrol sergeant asked Williams a question that forced Williams to reveal he is gay. This violated patrol rules prohibiting polygraph questions about sexual orientation. The question concerned a massage Williams confessed to receiving in Thailand that involved sexual contact. Such a massage is not illegal in Thailand.

In an earlier ruling, McClatchey concluded that patrol leaders used the polygraph test as the reason for denying Williams’ reinstatement, contrary to law-enforcement hiring standards that prevent polygraphs from being the sole factor in an employment decision.

McClatchey said in her latest ruling — given Friday and released Saturday by Williams’ attorney, Keith A. Shandalow — that after denial of reinstatement, Williams made repeated and unsuccessful attempts to gain employment in both law enforcement and a wide variety of private companies.

She noted that once her initial decision was publicized in July 2012, Williams “became essentially unemployable in law enforcement.”

“Because of his litigation in this case and his sexual orientation,” she said, “(he) will likely be regarded by prospective law enforcement employers as an individual who is potentially litigious and may pose internal personnel disruptions.”

As far as seeking work in the private sector, he again was unsuccessful, said the judge, adding that “the publicity surrounding this case will make it extremely difficult because he will be perceived as litigious.”

The judge noted Williams is now working for an irrigation firm in Hawaii at a much lower salary than he would have received at the State Patrol, but that the position in Hawaii was not conditional and Williams has “every reason to trust the motives and good faith of his employer.”

In summary, Williams will “suffer the future effects of (the State Patrol’s) discriminatory actions for the foreseeable future, and he is unlikely to ever obtain employment at a pay level higher than Kona Irrigation (where he is earning $40,000 annually) because of his high school education,” said the judge.

In awarding the $172,742 in back pay, McClatchey explained that it “is determined by measuring the difference between a plaintiff’s actual earnings and the earnings that would have been received, but for discrimination.”

The back pay covered the period of June 15, 2010, to Dec. 20, 2012 — $159,365 plus $13,377 interest for the total of $172,742.

She calculated the $595,526 in front pay by looking at the difference between Williams’ Kona Irrigation salary and the trooper salary for the length of time he would have remained a trooper.

In her earlier ruling, she stopped short of ordering the State Patrol to give him his job back, finding that the agency would probably be a hostile work environment.

The Larimer County coroner on Sunday performed an autopsy on the body found on a farm just east of Loveland Saturday, but the office will not release the cause of death or the identity of the person until they can track down next of kin.